


like real people do

by surrealmeme



Category: Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Inspired by Pygmalion and Galatea (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Inspired by a Hozier Song, Introspection, Pastoral, Sappho (fl. 600 BCE) Poetry, Song: Like Real People Do (Hozier), Title from a Hozier Song, soft vibes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22447435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surrealmeme/pseuds/surrealmeme
Summary: I do not know what I look like, but when the hands are not working, they reverently caress the completed parts of me, and I know that I must be beautiful.
Relationships: Héloïse/Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	like real people do

The first thing I feel is warmth upon my face. I do not know it yet, but it is molten gold, lustrous amber—sunlight. I cannot see or hear or speak or touch, but I can feel. Something soft brushes over the lower part of my face, which I now know to be my lips. It rains one day, and I can taste the moisture in the air, earthy, deep, and pure.

I still cannot hear nor see, but soon I can breathe. Cold, suffocating confines are chipped away, freeing my neck and chest. The air is sweet and cool. Then I feel that very air—a breeze—blow through my hair. I sigh, a small sound of pleasure slipping past my lips. I feel strength when I am given a pair of arms, and then I can touch. Now I know that what had passed over my lips were fingertips.

As my waist and thighs are uncovered, I know nothing but the fact that I am always being touched. Someone’s hands leave the destruction of my cage in their wake, grant me life, and I am grateful. But they are shy. They hesitate to give me sight nor sound, as if they dread being known by me. They needn’t be.

I do not know what I look like, but when the hands are not working, they reverently caress the completed parts of me, and I know that I must be beautiful.

My calves are lean and powerful; I feel a sudden, intense desire to run as far as they can carry me. But my feet are encased in what feels like lead, and I still am blind. I wish nothing more than to see the light that roused me, the face of my liberator. I know but one thing—their hands are like mine, slender and supple and soft despite their work. They are a woman’s hands.

Finally, I can hear her as she works. Hear her low grunts and heavy breathing when she breaks away my prison. Hear her as she talks to herself, asks herself about the boniness of my ankles, the exact angle of my jaw. Her voice is steady and low, like how I imagine honey to languidly flow from its jar.

She gives me eyes before she gives me feet. I think she is afraid I may run away, but she has nothing to fear. I may crave the feeling of soft, moist earth beneath my feet, the jolts travelling up my soles to my knees as I dash across a field, but I would never run from her—only to her. I would even be bound to my pedestal for eternity if it meant that I could always look upon her face.

It is small and a little round, although a certain angle reveals a sharp jaw. The natural set of her face is stern, but it can instantly glint with amusement when she smirks, brighten with joy when she smiles. She keeps her dark brown hair up when she works; when freed, the lustrous waves bounce down to the middle of her neck. Her eyes are dark, intelligent, and shrewd; they miss no detail as she refines me to perfection. I wish to know her name, a word by which to call the object of my love.

Then she gives me feet, supple and shapely. When all is dark and the world is still, I gingerly step down from my marble pedestal. I stumble and nearly fall, unused to using my legs. So I practice each night, making unsure circles around the studio. I marvel at all of the paintings, sketches, and other sculptures that it contains.

When the moon gives way to the sun and the sky awakens in a blaze of fire, I must return to my place, assume the unchanging position she has put me in. She gazes at me with a strange look in her eyes; it is too complex and human for me to comprehend. But what I do understand is her touch. The hours once devoted to working on me are now spent trailing her fingertips over every surface of my body. It no longer feels like an artist’s pride in her work, and I yearn to reach out and take _her_ hand, stroke _her_ hair, squeeze _her_ thighs, caress _her_ face. But I am unmoving. My imitation of life is only granted at night. But I can still look and I can still feel and I can still walk and I tell myself that it is enough.

One night, when the moon is low, full, and yellow in the sky, I step outside, tense my legs, and _run_. The wind is bracing as it whips through my hair and beats at my face; the cool grass leaves droplets of water on my ankles. The crisp air opens my lungs and burns them all at once. The moon’s otherworldly light makes my smooth skin glow, and I am radiant.

But it is too bright. I am jolted to a stop by a pair of boorish, vulgar, pestilent voices. Crude and repellent, they are nothing like hers—men’s voices. They jeer and shout, and I am filled with anger that quickly turns to fear as they approach. I flee, feet slipping on the cold, wet earth.

+++

I do not return to the fields. I stay inside her studio, and the works of art slowly begin to lose their allure. I want more. If I cannot know the outside world, I will know her—not as an artist but as a person, as a woman. One night, I finally have had enough of the studio. I cautiously push open the door; it opens into a long hallway, lined with yet more doors. Impatient and unwilling to puzzle out which one belongs to her, I push on the one nearest me. It swings open, smooth and silent on its hinges, to reveal a library.

The first thing I notice is that the room is small, a quality exacerbated by how each wall is covered by massive shelves; there are even more stacks of books dotting the floor. Two chairs sit in the center of the room, but only one bears signs of use. A slim volume lies open upon it; the corner of the page is folded down and the margins are filled with scrawled pencil notes. Whatever is on the page must be significant to her, and I do not even attempt to resist its temptation, the glimpse it provides into her psyche.

I see that there is a title on the page—“Pygmalion et Galatea.” I am able to read the first few paragraphs, but nothing more. She may have given me the gift of letters, but it is an unpracticed one; its use tires me. I return to the studio, turning the words over in my mind, and decide to return every night until I finish the story.

+++

Ever since I laid my eyes upon that book, each day passes languid, long, and lonesome. I cannot derive the same pleasure from simply observing as I used to. The golden rays of the sun, the perfume of the flower, the song of the birds—they all call to me. I cannot remain frozen and cold upon my marble pedestal; I desire, and I crave. I _want_.

I am impatient, anxiously waiting for night to fall and the house to go to sleep. I walk the practiced path to the library, just barely open the heavy door and slip inside. I curl up in the plush, worn armchair, relishing how the soft velvet whispers over my bare skin. I turn the book over in my hands before opening it, rifle through the pages before reading them.

I think I know now why she has dwelled upon this specific story. It is of a sculptor and his masterpiece, and—though it may be nothing more than wishful thinking—I cannot help but see a similarity to her and myself.

The names are difficult to form in my mouth; they carry the strange taste of antiquity. I turn the page and although I can read the words, I do not understand. They carry no meaning to me; I know not of Venus or heifers or frankincense or divine fire.

But their significance is not lost on her. Notes fill the margins; phrases are underlined and words circled. One of her memos is larger than the others— _Ode to Aphrodite_ , it reads.

I do not genuinely believe that I will be able to find this _Ode to Aphrodite_ , whatever it is. But I look anyway, plucking random books from the shelves and thumbing through them. And I see traces of her all over—not just marginalia and underlining, but sketches and drawings. They are more beautiful than any of the finished paintings in the studio, for they are rough and raw and real.

+++

I feel the sun upon my skin, and I strain against my body to reach towards it. I fall forward, landing hard on the wooden floor. My marble skin had not pushed back against me, keeping me frozen. I do not understand what is happening—why I can move when it is still light, why I no longer feel that ever-present bone-deep chill. It is only when I rush to the clouded mirror on the wall that I understand. My skin is not pure white and flat. It is pink peach, mottled with dark spots and red patches; it shines in the glass and moves when touched. The words are slow to come to my mind, but I realize that I… am alive.

Still, some things remain the same. I walk to the library, the path now second nature. I do not know where she is this very moment or when she will come. So, I rest upon the armchair and notice that it is warm, the velvet having been heated by the sun. The soothing light streaming in through the windows must have lulled me to sleep, for I awaken at the sound of a sharp gasp.

She is there, standing but a few feet from me, yet the first thing I see is how the sky is on fire, blazing with magnificent reds and oranges as the sun sinks into the sea.

With an awkward motion, she unwraps the shawl from her shoulders and thrusts it at me; I accept it and drape it over myself.

“I am Marianne,” she says.

“And I,” I start but pause when I realize that I have no name to call myself by. The library is silent for a time, but I find myself.

“I am Héloïse. I have finally met you.”

**Author's Note:**

> "I desire and I crave" -- taken from Sappho 10  
> "I want" -- from the line "Because I prayed this word: I want" (also Sappho, but I can't find which fragment/poem it's from)
> 
> (i'd recommend https://chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/5886 if you want to read more sappho online; _If Not, Winter_ is a popular, comprehensive volume by Anne Carson)
> 
> title from "Like Real People Do" by Hozier


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